Cycling / MTB: The Cape Epic 2019 is approaching its finale and today's queen stage was the difficult day that was expected, which caused large time gaps at times. Stage win went to local heroes Pyga Euro Steel, with Nino Schurter and Lars Forster rolling right behind them to reclaim the overall lead and now head into the final two stages with a lead of over five minutes on Cannondale Factory. Behind them, the Italians from Trek Selle San Marco put themselves in pole position for the final podium place and took a few minutes off the BULLS Heroes.
In the run-up to today's stage at Cape Epic, it rightly received the stamp "queen's stage": Several steep climbs and numerous technical passages lined up on the 100km, on which the drivers faced a merciless 2.850hm. The extremely narrow time gaps after yesterday's time trial provided additional spice: the four fastest teams were all within just 10 minutes. Right from the start, however, it was clear that Scott-Sram would like to use today to regain the overall lead that was lost to Cannondale Factory two days ago. It wasn't long before Schurter's ex-partner Andri Frischknecht from Scott-Sram Support Team DSV Scott-Sram picked up the pace and opened up a gap. The fact that he left his team-mate behind, violated the regulations and accepted a time penalty seemed to have been taken into account. For Schurter and Forster, however, the move worked out, also because Manuel Fumic fell at the wrong moment and, together with partner Avancini, missed the leap into the top group.
The constellation at the top played Scott-Sram fully into the cards: The South African team from Pyga Euro Steel was there, which had reckoned with great chances in the overall classification before the race, but had not been particularly lucky so far. The duo seemed all the more motivated to win today. The pace at the front was correspondingly high, while Fumic in particular had great problems keeping up with the pace today and the gap grew with every kilometer. On the other hand, the two Italians from Trek Selle San Marco had a very good day, who wanted to leave no doubt about defending their podium position against Simon Stiebjahn and Urs Huber (BULLS Heroes). The two Bulls pilots, on the other hand, had a day to forget: three crashes, damaged shoes and a broken derailleur hanger dashed any hopes of keeping Trek's competition in check today.
After crossing the finish line, the situation in the overall classification was much clearer than yesterday – even if the die was not yet cast. Back at the top are Scott-Sram with a solid lead of 5:13 over Cannondale Factory and nearly 15 over third-place duo Trek Selle San Marco. Despite the epidemic day, the BULLS Heroes were able to stay in fourth place, but are now more than 6 minutes behind the podium. However, there are still two days to be completed and the last few days have shown how quickly a time gap of a few minutes can turn into dust in harsh South Africa.
For the women, the duo of Summit Fin and Adeldheid Morath confirmed the impression of the past few days that the longer the race, the better they can play to their strengths. For a long time today, they were at the front with Anna van der Breggen and Annika Langvad (Investec-songo-Specialized), who had dominated the race up to that point and are now in the lead in the overall standings. However, after Anna van der Breggen fell, Summit Fin was able to break away and continue to expand the lead. In the end, Breisgauer Morath and her partner Candice Lill were a little over four minutes ahead of Investec-songo-Specialized.
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